Chapter 4: Blood or Mercy
1039 Words
I didn’t feel cold.
That’s how I knew something was wrong.
The night air cut through Malik’s jacket, sharp enough to make his breath fog, but my skin didn’t react. No shiver. No goosebumps. Nothing.
I was hollowed out.
Malik noticed before I did.
“You shaking?” he asked, hands on my shoulders, eyes searching my face.
I blinked. “I don’t think so.”
He cursed under his breath.
I watched his mouth move, knew the sound meant concern, but it didn’t reach me. Fear was gone. Relief was gone. The ache that usually lived in my chest—gone too.
The System had stripped me.
EMOTIONAL SUPPRESSION: STABLE.
USER PERFORMANCE OPTIMIZED.
“What did you do to me?” I asked aloud.
No answer.
Malik’s thoughts leaked through the bond, raw and unfiltered.
This thing breaking her on purpose.
He grabbed my face, forcing me to look at him.
“Riyah,” he said firmly. “Stay with me.”
“I am with you,” I replied.
The words were right.
The feeling wasn’t.
We didn’t go far.
Malik took me to an abandoned apartment over one of his closed-down businesses. Dusty. Bare. Safe enough for one night. He locked the door, checked the windows, then turned back to me like he didn’t trust the room not to swallow me whole.
“You hungry?” he asked.
I shook my head.
“You tired?”
“No.”
“You hurt?”
I thought about it.
“I don’t know.”
That scared him.
I could hear it in the way his thoughts spiked.
She numb. That’s worse than scared.
He moved closer, slow, like I might shatter if he rushed me.
“What happens if you disobey it?” he asked.
I finally felt something then.
Pressure.
Right behind my eyes.
The System responded before I could.
NONCOMPLIANCE RESULTS IN ESCALATION.
NEXT DIRECTIVE PENDING.
Malik swore. “It threatening you.”
“Yes.”
“And Dre?”
My stomach tightened—but only because I remembered it should.
“He’s not done,” I said. “He sold you out… and me.”
Malik’s jaw flexed.
“You sure?”
The System pulsed.
SECONDARY BETRAYAL CONFIRMED.
LOCATION TRACKED.
Images flooded my mind.
Dre in a back room. Talking fast. Sweating. A gun on the table. My mama’s street name coming out his mouth.
I gasped—not from fear.
From rage.
It came back all at once.
Hot. Sharp. Overwhelming.
I staggered, grabbing Malik’s shirt.
“I need you,” I said—voice breaking for the first time since the shooting. “Don’t let it take that too.”
His hands tightened on my waist.
“Take what?”
“This,” I whispered. “Us.”
The bond flared.
He heard it all.
The fear.
The want.
The heat I’d been trying not to feel since the moment he walked into my house.
His breath hitched.
“Riyah…” he warned.
The System interrupted.
DIRECTIVE ISSUED.
ELIMINATE THREAT: DRE WILKINS.
REWARD: FAMILY SAFETY EXTENDED 30 DAYS.
The words burned.
Malik went still.
“It wants you to kill him,” he said.
“Yes.”
“And if you don’t?”
The screen flickered red.
PUNISHMENT: TOTAL EMOTIONAL NULLIFICATION.
I looked up at Malik.
“Help me,” I whispered.
His thoughts crashed into me—violent, protective, desperate.
I’ll do it.
I’ll kill him so she don’t have to.
“No,” I said quickly. “It won’t work. It has to be my choice.”
He stared at me like that might break him.
“You ain’t built for that.”
I leaned into him.
“I wasn’t built to die either.”
The silence stretched.
Heavy.
Dangerous.
Then Malik pulled me closer—forehead to forehead.
“If you go through with this,” he said quietly, “it’s gonna change you.”
“I know.”
“And if you don’t…”
“I lose everything.”
He closed his eyes.
Then kissed me.
Not soft.
Not hesitant.
Hard. Desperate. Like he was trying to burn me back into myself before the System took the rest.
My hands slid up his chest, gripping him like he was the last real thing left. Heat flooded me—real this time. Mine.
The System screamed.
EMOTIONAL SPIKE DETECTED.
DISCIPLINARY MEASURES PREPARING.
Pain lanced through my head.
I cried out, nails digging into Malik’s shoulders.
“Don’t let go,” I begged.
“I got you,” he growled. “Fight it.”
I focused on him.
The smell of smoke and cologne.
The sound of his heart.
The way his thoughts wrapped around mine like armor.
The pain eased.
Barely.
The System recalibrated.
WARNING ISSUED.
INTIMACY INTERFERES WITH CONTROL.
Malik laughed darkly.
“Good.”
We moved fast after that.
Dre was at a rundown motel off the highway—the kind of place people went to disappear. Malik parked two blocks away.
“You don’t gotta do this,” he said again.
I checked the gun in my hand.
“I already did once,” I replied.
His jaw tightened.
“I’m with you.”
I nodded.
The hallway smelled like bleach and lies.
Dre’s door was cracked open.
He didn’t see me until it was too late.
“Riyah—wait—”
I raised the gun.
The System whispered.
EXECUTE.
I hesitated.
Just long enough to feel Malik behind me.
His hand covered mine.
“Whatever you choose,” he said softly, “I choose you.”
That did it.
I pulled the trigger.
The sound echoed.
Dre fell.
The System went silent.
Then—
OBJECTIVE COMPLETE.
REWARD ISSUED.
WARNING: MORAL DEVIATION INCREASING.
I stared at the body.
And this time—
I felt everything.
The guilt.
The grief.
The heat still burning low in my stomach.
The love twisting painfully in my chest.
I sank to my knees.
Malik caught me.
Held me.
Didn’t let go.
“You still you,” he whispered into my hair. “I don’t care what it says.”
I clung to him.
But deep down…
I knew the System had learned something tonight.
And it wasn’t done punishing me.
- Writer
